[CAUT] rehearsal room climate swings

[John Minor]

Joel,

No, there is not humidity system in the building. They
promised one for the 2000 seat great hall, but it never
materialized. I "chat" with the building engineer often, and
it is beyond his scope as well.

John Minor

---- Original message ----
>Date: Wed, 17 May 2006 08:49:02 -0500
>From: "Joel A. Jones" <jajones2 at wisc.edu>  
>Subject: Re: [CAUT] rehearsal room climate swings  
>To: jminor at uiuc.edu, College and University Technicians
<caut at ptg.org>
>
>John,
>
>This may be a 'duh' question, but does the new system have a
humidifier
>on the air supply?   If they do it looks like it needs major
monitoring
>with  new controls and recalibration.
>
>My suggestion is to find the tradesman who has the screwdriver
>and responsible for the operation  of the
>new system.  Sit down for coffee and a chat.  My guess as to the
>wide swings would be that the U trades are either not allowed
>to stabilize the controls of the new HVAC or that they are
getting
>flack from the desk jockeys that they don't need to run the
>humidity system.
>
>In my situation the tradesman had  orders from his boss not to
>run the humidity because they would be running two units.
>After our chat, and some tweeking heating dept. found that
>they needed less heat and ran their controls at 67 degrees with
>no complaints.   Combined with the 40% humidity everybody wasc
>comfortable and the music faculty with piano, woodwinds and voice
>were very helpful with their kudos and praise for the change.
>
>Indeed you have a severe problem.  Hopefully not a
>physical problem with no humidifiers for your building.
>
>Joel
>
>Joel Jones, RPT
>Madison, WI
>
>On May 16, 2006, at 2:23 PM, John Minor wrote:
>
>> I've been fighting wide swings in temp/humidity in university
>> buildings for 13 years now and the tuning stability seems to
>> get worse each year. One of our buildings recently underwent
>> HVAC updates and the air exchange is now much more rapid
that it
>> ever was. I suspect this constant high volume flow of outside
>> air around the pianos has a great deal of destabilizing effect.
>>
>> Has anyone tried using Edwards String Covers to shield the
>> pianos from all that airflow?
>>
>> Any ideas?
>>
>> John Minor
>> University of Illinois
>>
>> The 2 images are from a DICKSON DATA LOGGER tucked under the
>> soundboard of a Steinway B in large rehearsal room. It was set
>> to log hourly readings.
>> <rehearsal room one month.jpg><rehearsal room one year.jpg>
>